in the european union are preparing punitive sanctions. christie flats in ease up next with the w business and the latest on what the you came, crisis means for gas supplies and for the markets, or want to stick around for that. a michael oak, who in berlin, you watching d. w. ah . people in trucks injured when trying to flee the city center. more and more refugees are being turned away on the border. families, please see the reason for these critical illness with people lean extreme ross getting 200 people in around the world. more than 300000000 people are seeking refuge. yes.

why? because no one should have to flee. make up your own mind. d. w. made for mines. ah, ah, ah, can europe get by without russia's gas pensions over ukraine are putting pressure on you supplies? also coming up, credit suisse rejects allegations, it provided bank accounts to notorious criminals following a massive leak that's been done with the sweet secrets. and we visit an australian farm, boasting a world 1st sunflowers cultivated entirely by a drone. this is dw business, i'm christy plats and in berlin. welcome to the program. contentions between russia

and ukraine, force europe to rethink its energy strategy. much of the continent relies the natural gas imported from russia. but we can relations between moscow and it's european neighbors mean access to that supply could be in danger. the you imported 168000000000 cubic meters of gas from russia last year. that's a lot to lose where the block to be cut off from russian supplies. and don't forget, europe is already in the middle of an energy crunch. so could europe make up for the loss? liquefied natural gas could be a solution. the you currently imports around $110.00 worth of l. n g a month, but that number would have to triple to replace russian gas. so is europe in any position to live without russian gas? to find out more i spoke earlier with maria de mer sees, she's the deputy director of brutal and economic think tank and brussels. i asked her what might happen if russian gas stopped flowing to europe?

indeed, that is a possibility. i think this question is a lot more relevant for possibly next to of them this year. and the reason why i'm saying this is because we are now closer to the end of the winter. so the issue of heating is less less of an difficulty. i think if i was to seize all flows beginning, let's say, next week i think that we'll still see an issue. all price has been high, but we're not going to see so much an issue of the lack of supply of gas because we not suspect we are, we are mostly covered. so i think the imminent risk is already gone. but of course, the question remains relevant for next year and the year after that. right, well you're saying the currently supplies are more or less covered. but if we were to see, for example, next year, a gap in supplies, would we have access to enough liquefied natural gas to make up for that? yeah, i think the, the short answer is say probably no. and there is multiple reasons for that. very

1st of all bottlenecks that have to do with a supply of, of energy. and that of course relates social 2 infrastructure to receive it and distributed energy. and that's not something that can happen, certainly not this year, but also it needs a lot more time for europe to adjust the infrastructure that is required for this. and other reason why it's not easy to quickly use l and g to substitute for us and gas is the issue or for the fact that the supply of energy requires long term contracts meeting that we would have to persuade. we being, they, you would have to persuade the asian buyers to be direct the supply towards euro, which of course possible buddy to quite an investment of a lot of political capital. so it's not an immediate thing and up, copping from one day to the next. and then of course, the company's of the infrastructure elegy would have to come to spain and from spain redistributed to to the rest of the users. geographically difficult is there,

so only no l n g is not a short term substitute for the possibility of rush and gas been stopped, but it is of course in the suite of tools that the you will have to consider for the future. sure. and the last question here, maria, our european leaders, rethinking their choice to have relied so heavily on russia for energy these you has called to other projects in mind to try and diversify away from ration, gast, who other as providers. and there is multiple projects that ended up, certainly they would need to be sped up in some way or another. i love will depend also on what to other energy sources. we are going to reconsider. of course, i remind you here of these, of the new, the use of nuclear energy last part of the suite of tools that we have in our disposal. and the one thing i would also say that, paradoxically, this is really going to speed up the energy transition as far as the you is concerned. they you want to travel that way anyway. so i think that's going to

speed it up. right, right. maria de mercy of the brooklyn institute. thank you so much. staying with russia, stocks on the moscow exchange fell further to day after russia downplayed the chances of a meeting between putin and u. s. president joe biden, following a rise in cease fire violations in the east of ukraine. the r t. s. index focused on international russian firms fell 18 percent before making a slight recovery. the index for domestic companies. the mo x fell around 10 percent. the fall wiped out all russian stock gains made since november 2020 if yoga has begun generating electricity from a controversial mega dam being built on the blue nile, a milestone has reached on sunday when one of the 13th her binds of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam started producing power in an event, officiated by prime minister abi ahmed. it's yes, prime minister courts,

the beginning of electricity production, the birth of a new era. the government says this project is essential for the electrification and development of africa. second most populous country. the 3700000000 euro dam is expected to produce more than 5000 megawatts of electricity . more than doubling it's europe. yes. current production so far, only one of 13 turbans is operational, the dams completion is slated for 2024. eagle bill on the over logwood citizen c o. p as main concern is the protection of 60 percent of the people who experienced darkness at about 2 mothers who've never seen an electric light bulb to me through. at the same time, i humbly call our brothers to stand together for mutual benefit, instead of wasting their time energy and money. and trying to thwart this project that i to mill lim like a luxury of

a legal. he refers to egypt and sudan as brothers, but both neighboring countries fear the dam could threaten their access to the ny egypt depends on the river for nearly all of its irrigation and drinking water. but abby dismisses its concerns. yolanda mate, though, as you can see, i'm in this water will generate energy while flowing as it has to see don and egypt not like the rumors that say the ethiopian people and government a damning the water to starve egypt and sudan wyndham, gibson, and not yes, would on his when the must, rob chiral and cartoon have long been pushing for a binding deal over the filling and operation of the den. but the talks broken by the african union have failed to achieve a breakthrough. now to some of the other global business stories making news, germany's central bank fears, europe's largest economy, has fallen into its 2nd pandemic recession due to the impact of co 19 restrictions

. the buddhist bank says gdp will probably be negative this quarter, falling on from a fall of 0.7 percent at the end of last year. however, the bank expects germany would quickly bounce back from a recession on monday, morocco in israel sign, a trade deal aimed at more than tripling their current trade volume to $500000000.00. the 2 countries are looking at broadening cooperation and collaboration in innovation. morocco is real normalize relations in 2020 credit suisse is facing allegations. it has been handling dirty money for decades and investigation led by german daily. the pseudo to zeitung has revealed that switzerland's 2nd biggest lender, knowingly managed hundreds of millions of dollars for suspected war. criminals, corrupt autocrats and drug dealers. that's according to an investigation by a consortium of, of, of over 40 media organizations worldwide. the swiss bank says it rejects the

insinuations about its purported practices. business reporter cassandra sons spoke with us earlier about the depth of the scandal. not only are some of these people very well known, but their crimes are well documented and also well known. i'll just go through a very brief list here. we've gotten big names like the sons of the former egyptian, a dictator, hosni mubarak, they've been convicted of embezzlement. and you might also remember the case of the former seaman's employee, a german named edwards. i dell. he confessed in 2006 to german authorities to his role in an industrial sized bribery scheme. yet his accounts remained open well into the next decade. there's another case of a swedish man. he's serving a life sentence for human trafficking, convicted in 2011. his account stayed open for another 2 years. and we also have accounts linked to businessman and politicians involved with the venezuelan state oil company had visa,

notorious for the last few years for being engulfed in the corruption. but these are all red flags. a lot of key words here that if you're monitoring these accounts should be red flags. but yet these accounts stayed open. that was my colleague, cassandra sons, speaking about the depths of the credit suisse scandal earlier. a farm and australia has become home to the world's 1st sunflower crop, planted entirely by a drone. the experiment is now in full bloom, drawing in tourists from all over to enjoy the photo op and a glimpse of the future of farming. this sealed could signal the future farming. seating by drones already used for crops like barley and wheat, but many were skeptical. it would work for sunflowers, sunflowers need to have fairly consistent, spicing, ah, to grow correctly. and they also normally get incorporated quite accurately. so

those are some of the challenges that we had to overcome was planning them by drawn . many farmers say the technique is less invasive than traditional planting methods as it doesn't disturb the soil as much. they believe more farmers will follow suit using groans, full, they admit it has still some limitations. the only thing the drawing won't be able to do is harvested at least not yet. at this point, locals and tourists are coming to see the world's 1st sunflower crop planted entirely by drones. it's a picture perfect background for photographers, and shows futuristic tech in full bloom. that's all for me and the business team here in berlin today until next time. take care. ah

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